how do y'all feel about this?

I am currently completing a book called FANZINES (Thames & Hudson) and have included the cover of List / Goodbye, Baltimore, no. 12 (fall 2008), fully credited in the book.

My book looks at the history of fanzines in a general overview of UK and USA-based self-publishing. As a good example of an interesting contemporary personal zine it would be remiss not to include it in any history of fanzines. The book is due out in September and I hope this will establish the importance of this form of self-publishing.

I do hope this is okay.Yours sincerely,Prof Teal TriggsUniversity of the Arts London"

Poor form right? I know a lot of zinesters don't care about their things being reproduced or used, and I actually don't mind at all for it to be included, but it seems like asking ahead of time would be the right thing to do, right? Especially for a book?

Replies to This Discussion

He was virtually the ONLY one for the past three screens worth of dialog for one. I can discuss something without disrespecting the perspective the other person is coming from, but when I feel I'm being shot down for my opinion--that's not a discussion anymore, it's a domination. The give and take is gone.

whatpeoplearethinking said:

What the fuck are you talking about? The dude posted some chill, well thought out responses to comments other people have made. How is that AT ALL domination? It has all been back and forth.

You are crazy.

Elaine said:

I dunno. When one person dominates a 'discussion' it usually ceases to be a discussion.

Now you're lying. Every single one of the guys posts (with the exception of his first) has been in response to someone else (either youself or user: NicoleIntrovert). That is a shared dialogue. Nicole called him an idiot, and you started claiming that you were being "dominated" (which you clearly aren't).

The dude has done nothing but share his opinion in a friendly manner. Don't try and make implications that he's a bad guy because you don't agree with him.

Elaine said:

He was virtually the ONLY one for the past three screens worth of dialog for one. I can discuss something without disrespecting the perspective the other person is coming from, but when I feel I'm being shot down for my opinion--that's not a discussion anymore, it's a domination. The give and take is gone.

whatpeoplearethinking said:

What the fuck are you talking about? The dude posted some chill, well thought out responses to comments other people have made. How is that AT ALL domination? It has all been back and forth.

You are crazy.

Elaine said:

I dunno. When one person dominates a 'discussion' it usually ceases to be a discussion.

An artist/(author's) intent is many times a terrible gauge when attempting to understand a work of art. Said another way, it almost doesn't matter what Teal Triggs' intent was - this is the outcome. While there are some really good points made in favor of the book, there are many more that are against the book. In the end, its just a mediocre mundane coffee table book that many mediocre mundane people will eventually buy, and then a few years later donate to the local Salvation Army, which will then sell it for a dollar or two to some kid in 2017, who will then make their own zine, and then in 2030 finally realize how mediocre and mundane that book was in the first place. By the way, I'm really glad I was able to pick up a copy at first opportunity!

Joseph Delgado said:

Again, no one seems to be poignantly questioning the 'motivation' behind this book...

Here is a question I've been wanting to ask since about the middle of this discussion, at least since the physical book came out. It doesn't look to have been asked in this form during this entire thread.

If Teal Triggs had done the work and had contacted zine publishers while she was in the beginning stages of the book, not right before it went to press, would you have granted permission for her to reproduce the cover and/or pages from your zines?

My answer: If she had been doing an actual, seriously scholarly work, I would have let her use covers and interior pages (with proper credits listed and a complimentary copy sent to me). But since it seems like FANZINES is little more than a picture book (from what I can tell from the discussion, still haven't seen a copy), I would have granted only a few cover images (with credit listed and a comp copy).

I'm sorry, I'm out of this so called conversation, I have other things to worry about. I'm burying my mother on Monday.

Elaine

whatpeoplearethinking said:

Now you're lying. Every single one of the guys posts (with the exception of his first) has been in response to someone else (either youself or user: NicoleIntrovert). That is a shared dialogue. Nicole called him an idiot, and you started claiming that you were being "dominated" (which you clearly aren't).

If you now think of yourself out of the conversation why did you even post anything? Why not just not respond?

Elaine said:

I'm sorry, I'm out of this so called conversation, I have other things to worry about. I'm burying my mother on Monday.

Elaine

whatpeoplearethinking said:

Now you're lying. Every single one of the guys posts (with the exception of his first) has been in response to someone else (either youself or user: NicoleIntrovert). That is a shared dialogue. Nicole called him an idiot, and you started claiming that you were being "dominated" (which you clearly aren't).

Of course there are certainly aspects about the book that I 100% disagree with, but at the end of the day it isn't really all that big of a deal. Reading the Wikileaks cable about the US taxpayer-funded contractor organizing child rape parties for stoned cops in Afghanistan is the type of thing that should motivate a person to start an information spreading campaign. A book that includes some scans of zine covers that were printed without permission, not so much.

Amber, I believe in all of your efforts to document this issue you are being extremely ambiguous and/or dishonest by leaving out the fact that it is simply the covers being used. I was in agreeance with most people here when I had first read about it, but after receiving my contributor copy I completely changed my mind when I saw that it was just the covers. Looking over the little website you have put together you have not described the contents of the book in a clear, honest way. You use the term "artwork" and list all the zines that were featured, but it's misleading to those who have not actually read the book when you do not mention that it was infact just covers. It feels like you are trying to fool people by making it sound worse than it actually is. Like you're lawyer-ing the issue.

It sucks that this book is being sold in the places that it is, but to me it's on par with pictures of album covers being printed alongside reviews in magazines. I think it's sad that the zine community is trying to use mob mentality to force silly rules upon others like this.

Amber / Culture Slut said:

I'd thought about saying something a little more articulate, but... I like the way these dudes are all THAT'S NOT HOW WE DID IT IN THE 90S and FUCK COPYRIGHT FUCK THE MAINSTREAM, yet expect us to be thankful to have been misrepresented in a book cashing in on the current 90s trend, being sold at Chapters and Amazon, and even hipster outlets like Urban Outfitters and Mod Cloth. Um, what?

Too bad the author didn't contact those involved first; we might've been able to offer some accurate information for her haphazard book. Oh well.

Not to mention, she actually quotes a suggestion from Stolen Sharpie Revolution saying that one should contact a zinester before reprinting their work, yet did not even bother to take heed of the advice she deemed worthy of reprinting in the first place. SSR's author was never contacted. Half of what she wrote about me was copied and pasted from my Blogspot profile, yet there is no reference to it in the book. Not only did she have my contact info, she was actively reading my blog and still didn't bother to contact me. She is essentially attempting to document a community that STILL EXISTS whilst refusing to actually interact with said community. It's lazy, illogical and embarrassing and it makes for a pretty awful read. Tell me again why I should be flattered? (And let's stop assuming that all zinesters' goal is to be read by as many people as possible. It's clearly not).

I think this has been true with about every zine book published. I just don't see what makes this one different or big deal drama in the zine community.

NicoleIntrovert said:

You folks do understand that due to Triggs horrible research methods that there are not only zines included that she did not have permission to include... but outright INCORRECT information about zines, zine writers, festivals, etc.

It's hard to criticize someone for being inaccurate while you yourself are also being inaccurate. It's clearly been stated multiple times the author did contact at least some of the zine editors--she contact me and we emailed back and forth a few times. I just don't see how this is different than most of the zine books published. I can't think of one that asked everyone's permission or didn't get factual information incorrect, it seems par for the course in doing one of these types of books. Again, I'll use the example of "American Hardcore," because that book had far far more mistakes. And I see similar things in zines all the time--covers of albums, books and other zines reprinted without permission, outright photos and artwork used without permission (apparently one of my photos was used in the new Razorcake and they gave me photo credit, but never asked me, big woop). Zines often have incorrect information, borrowed ideas and plagiarism. Is it fair to hold others to a higher standard than we hold ourselves to, simply because it's somehow seen as more profitable or corporate (which I'm not sure either is the case with this book, I'm guessing it's a money loser). As far as I can tell by copyright law, this book hasn't violated it. I manage a library and we definitely push copyright boundaries all the time in more egregious ways than this. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the outrage, it falls into that category of first world problems. I think it's a great debate, and I do recall a lot of similar arguments being made when The Factsheet Five Zine Reader came out (http://www.amazon.com/Factsheet-Five-Zine-Reader-Underground/dp/060...), but I just don't see some huge moral outrage over a fairly unsuccessful book on zines. I can see thinking it's not very good, but the whole idea of being ripped off and moral outrage seems misplaced. I would more see this as an opportunity to point people towards some of the books about zines that are good, because there are a bunch.

Amber / Culture Slut said:

Too bad the author didn't contact those involved first; we might've been able to offer some accurate information for her haphazard book. Oh well.

Not to mention, she actually quotes a suggestion from Stolen Sharpie Revolution saying that one should contact a zinester before reprinting their work, yet did not even bother to take heed of the advice she deemed worthy of reprinting in the first place. SSR's author was never contacted. Half of what she wrote about me was copied and pasted from my Blogspot profile, yet there is no reference to it in the book. Not only did she have my contact info, she was actively reading my blog and still didn't bother to contact me. She is essentially attempting to document a community that STILL EXISTS whilst refusing to actually interact with said community. It's lazy, illogical and embarrassing and it makes for a pretty awful read. Tell me again why I should be flattered? (And let's stop assuming that all zinesters' goal is to be read by as many people as possible. It's clearly not).

I'm having a hard time understanding why folks find it so hard to grasp the concept that it is different to print a little picture of a zine cover next to a review in a zine vs. printing a zine cover as art in a for profit book.

For me it's because there are tons of books about zines, records, books, and music history that have done this and it's pretty clear it doesn't violate copyright. Every book about zines, and there's over twenty of them, have printed zine covers and pages as art and content. I have 50 books here on my shelf about punk, music history, zines, etc. that do the exact same thing. I just don't understand the outrage, this is normal. Have you guys never read any other books about zines? Or is it just because this is the first one that included your zine?

I was just looking through a book at the bookstore featuring DIY record cover design. It was funny to me because it was mostly punk, indie rock and hardcore 7" covers from the '90s that I have in my record collection. The author did really nice photographs of all these record covers and featured one on each page and added in a few pages of text about DIY style and design. Same sort of deal.

NicoleIntrovert said:

I'm having a hard time understanding why folks find it so hard to grasp the concept that it is different to print a little picture of a zine cover next to a review in a zine vs. printing a zine cover as art in a for profit book.